


One Act

by rellkelltn87



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Hospitals, Lost Love, Snakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 16:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20212987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rellkelltn87/pseuds/rellkelltn87
Summary: In the emergency room with a graze wound after a close call, Benson sees Barba, who she hasn't spoken to in eighteen months.





	One Act

For ten seconds, Olivia Benson thought she was dead, killed by friendly fire meant to protect her.

She saw terror in Carisi’s eyes, his lips rounded into an _o_, before he lowered his weapon and ran past her.

Her racing heart and the searing pain in her right arm told her she was most likely alive.

“Liv,” Rollins said, but Benson was too stunned to respond.

She turned around and, through eyes clouded by intense burning pain, saw the perp they’d been after for weeks on the floor, clutching his own bleeding arm, a pistol at his side.

Rollins knelt and bagged the weapon while Carisi placed the suspect under arrest.

“I’m sorry, Lieu,” Carisi said breathlessly. “He was behind you. He was —”

“You saved my life, Carisi.”

—-

From the edge of her hospital bed in the ER, Benson flipped through channels on the tv mounted in the corner of the room. She wore a hospital gown and socks, and her right arm was wrapped in layers of gauze, resting in a sling over her left shoulder. With her free hand anxiously gripping the 0.01-thread-count bedsheet, she peered through the inch-wide space between the sliding door and the doorway, hoping the attending would show up soon and discharge her so she could get home to Noah before midnight.

“… already said they’re going to have to admit me,” echoed a voice, an uncannily familiar voice, from the hallway just outside her room. “When? Tomorrow. I was supposed to head up tomorrow. So much for that.”

The uncanny familiarity wasn’t from the codeine they’d given Benson to take the edge off the graze wound. She saw Rafael Barba, also in a hospital gown and socks, walk past her room, cell phone pressed to his ear with one hand, the other hand clutching the back of the hospital gown, keeping it precariously closed. He didn’t notice her.

“How do I _feel_?” Barba barked into the phone. “How do you think I —” His voice faded, disappearing with him down the hall. When she heard him again, she knew he was pacing.

“They’re waiting for a room. They have to put me on antivenom overnight. I’m calling Julia in the morning. The judiciary committee —” He cut himself off, suddenly staring wide-eyed into the narrow space left by the sliding door to Benson’s room. Eyes bugging out of his head, he told the person on the other end of the call that he’d talk to them again in the morning, and, still holding his gown behind him with one hand, hobbled towards Benson, walking like an awkward wedding usher or hemorrhoid sufferer. 

“Liv?” he said into opening. “What happened?” Those were his first words to her since he’d left a year and a half ago. 

Since he’d left _her_, told her he’d changed because of _her_ and had to leave, words that seemed at the time to better fit the mouth of the sort of man who always found a woman to blame for his bad decisions, not her former best friend Rafael Barba. She’d asked around and learned that his incredibly out of character decision hadn’t tanked his career: after a few weeks vacationing out of state, perhaps out of the country, he’d been appointed to a new position as state prosecutor. He was working in Midtown, five or six subway stops north of the 16th Precinct. 

Not a visit, not a phone call, nothing.

She’d also learned, about a year ago, that he hadn’t told her the whole story behind his heel turn. 

And yet now, his eyes betrayed nothing but worry.

“Liv,” he repeated.

“Yeah,” she said, tilting her head toward the door, “you can open it.”

Barba slowly slid the door open a bit wider and slipped into the room. “I can explain,” he said, stammering out the three words.

She straightened her spine. “Whole trial was part of a month-long sham to take down a corrupt, abusive ADA wannabe who’d overprosecuted at least three major cases because of religious discrimination.”

“Yes,” he said, blinking furiously. “When did you —”

“A year ago. Why didn’t you just tell me, Rafa?”

“It would have compromised —”

“So instead you let me think —” She cut herself off. “You know what? I can’t do this now. A perp snuck up behind me and would have shot me in the back if not for Carisi’s quick reflexes.”

An _oh_ escaped from Barba’s lips, and he reflexively reached out a hand to her, quickly using the other hand to close his gown again, his phone dropping to the hard linoleum floor in the process.

“Shit,” he grumbled, bending to pick up the phone, “shit, the screen’s shattered.” He set the phone on the rolling tray next to Benson’s bed, then covered his eyes with one hand. “I’m sorry, Liv. I’m an asshole. I was afraid you’d be furious at me so I moved on.”

“What happened?”

“McCoy approached me about —”

“I mean why are you in the ER?”

He removed his hand from his now red-tinged eyes. “I sat on a snake.”

“_What_?”

“The snake that escaped the Bronx Zoo last week. I was in Bronx Park with Eddie and his son this afternoon, sat on a bench, and —”

“The snake bit you through your pants?”

“I met them after court. Bit me through my suit pants. This is the only hospital that has the right kind of antivenom.”

“How do you feel?”

“Headache and a swollen ass. How do _you_ feel?”

She raised her arm slightly. “Better than being shot in the back.” Reaching out her free hand, she beckoned him closer, then wrapped an arm around his upper back. “You’re an asshole,” she said, echoing his earlier sentiment. “You don’t know how I — when you left, and how _furious_ I was when I found out it was all a lie.”

Tracing small circles over the thin hospital gown, she added, “You could have told me, Rafa. We were friends, I thought.”

When he lifted his head, she saw tearstains on his cheeks. “I should get back. They’re looking for a room for me. I need to be admitted overnight.”

Benson hopped off the bed. “What is it?” she asked, rubbing his shoulder, as if they hadn’t been lost to each other for 18 months. 

“Snake bite on my ass,” he said, half-laughing, half-crying.

“I overheard you on the phone before.”

“My … phone,” he said, signaling towards the broken object on the tray.

“Rafa.” She dipped her head to catch his gaze.

He swallowed hard. “I missed you.”

“So did I. I’m still angry.”

“You have every right to be. So, I was supposed to head up to Albany tomorrow for a hearing with the state senate judiciary committee. Last-chance push for me to —” He didn’t finish, just flashed her a sad smile. “They’re not in session again until January, and by then the vacancy will be filled.” He closed his eyes and breathed deep through his nose. “So.”

She let the fingers of her left hand trace his hairline.

“You will be,” she said, “eventually.”

His face crumpled for a split second. “Not this year. Probably not next year, either. When I say last-chance push, I mean it.”

There was a knock at the door. “Mr. Barba?” a resident said. She tentatively stepped inside.

“Family reunion,” Barba said.

“We’ve got a room ready for you.”

“How long will I be here?”

“You’ll need 24 hours of the antivenom, so you won’t be discharged for another day and a half.”

“Okay,” Barba said, “thank you.”

“Are you in pain, Mr. Barba?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“I’ll give you two a minute. Meet me by the nurses’ station.”

The doctor left them alone together. Barba licked his lower lip, keeping his eyes fixed on Benson’s arm.

“I’m okay,” she promised. “Just a graze wound.”

“I know.” He pursed his lips. “I love you, Liv. It’s not my place to say that after I’ve been gone so long, but —”

“It could have been your place to say that a year and a half ago.”

“I love you. I put everything important to me on the line to see one bad man behind bars.”

“You could have told me.”

“The feds said not to. But I should have. That’s why I left. I’d lied to you, and I was continuing to lie to you.”

“You did what you had to,” she said, her voice fading into a whisper.

Another knock at the door. Another doctor, the attending ready to discharge Benson. “I need to get home to Noah,” she told Barba.

“I need to get some antivenom in my veins.”

“Call me,” she said.

Barba picked up his broken phone. “As soon as I’m out of here.”

“Tonight, if you need a friend.”

Barba nodded and sauntered towards the door. Before he left the room, he pressed his fingers to his lips, signaling a kiss. Benson returned the gesture, dragging her fingers from her lips down to her heart and resting a hand there.


End file.
